Birmingham Health Care's Metro Clinic, one of several medical clinics BHC operates in the area.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- With no settlement in sight, a lawsuit brought by a Tuskegee health center against Birmingham Health Care appears to be headed to trial, although it may be more than a year before it gets started due to funding cutbacks, a judge said in court this morning.

The case is already more than a year old.

Central Alabama Comprehensive Health (CACH) sued Birmingham Health Care (BHC) on Feb. 6, 2012, for breach of contract and conversion in a case over missing financial records from a time when BHC was being paid to manage CACH.

The audits have been completed and were presented to the CACH board of directors last week, said CACH lawyer John Johnson

Today Johnson told Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tom King that based on the board's review, it wants to amend the complaint and schedule a trial.

Johnson did not disclose what the audit found or what changes in the complaint CACH wants to make.

"Let me tell you I'm slammed," the judge said.

King said it would likely be 2014 before a trial could start and, even then, it could be summer.

"We don't have as many jury weeks as we used to by virtue of the monetary crisis," he said.

Johnson said he would likely file the amended complaint within two weeks.

BHC will then have 20 days to respond and after that, the judge said he will set a trial date.

The dispute dates back to June 2011 when CACH ended a $225,000 per year management contract with BHC. At that time, the CACH board of directors called for the immediate return of records from BHC and companies owned by then-CEO Jonathan Dunning.